[Granville-Hough] 3 May 2009 - Yorktown

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 07:20:58 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Yorktown (2002) - 3  May 2009

	A few years ago, I received a complaint about the contents of the
Yorktown Battlefield Book Store and its holdings.  I made the following
reply.

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     It may well be that we are viewing with alarm what the historian on
the Yorktown Battlefield staff does not yet know is a problem.  If that
person is diligent on the internet and investigates the Library of
Congress, the Army Historical Institute, and the Department of the Navy
History Division, web sites of publishing companies, Amazon.com, etc, he
or she may find suitable materials waiting and available to be placed in
the Yorktown bookstore.
     After all, we must take it as a given that just 26 years ago, there
was a great push to develop all sorts of studies for the 1976
Bicentennial.  Many individuals, companies, historical associations, and
local, state, and national goverment offices published.  I personally
did six books, covering the Hough and Huff families from sea to shining
sea, from the first Hough arrival in America through 1900.
     I call your attention to one such study done by Barbara A. Lynch for
the Navy Department Library, Navy History Division, Department of the
Navy, Washington, DC 20374, entitled: "The War at Sea: France and the
American Revolution - A Bibliography," and published by the
Superintendent of Documents, U. Government Printing Office, Washington,
DC 20402, price 85 cents, stock number 008-046-00083-2.  The last ten
pages are on Yorktown.  I quote the last paragraph of the Introduction
by Vice Admiral Edwin B. Hooper, USN (Ret), Director of Naval History,
"...It is to be hoped that the result of this combined effort, published
at the outset of Bicentennial observances, will be received as a welcome
and timely reference tool on both sides of the Atlantic."  Perhaps this
biblio is still available at the GPO.  If not, it can be readily
reproduced as it is only 48 pages.
     Of course, if one is asking: "What have you done for us, lately,"
then the problem is different.  What we have to do is a lot of
revision, based on restudies made since 1988 of the role of Spain in the
war with Britain.  We now know how the financial aid from Spain (and
Havana) to the de Grasse fleet made Yorktown possible.  We refer anyone
to the diary of the Spanish King's representative in the West Indies,
Francisco de Saavedre de Sangronis.  It was not translated into English
until 1988 by Francisco Morales Padron, "Journal of Don Francisco
Saavedre de Sangronis during the Commission which he had in his charge
from 25 June 1780 until the 20th of the same month of 1783," published
by the University of Florida Press, 1988, at Gainesville, FL. The
Yorktown activity was merely the first step in driving the British out
of the West Indies, and was more or less incidental to that effort.  The
French had promised to support a campaign to secure the independence of
the United States before it got on with the main effort in the West
Indies, and Yorktown carried out the French promise.
	We now know that the aid arranged by
Beaumarchais through the Rodrigo Hortalez Company before June 1779 was
paid for 50% by Spain and 50% by France.  Before Spain entered the war,
France thus took credit for much aid actually paid for by Spain.  We now
know the British viewpoint that Yorktown was a local naval episode where
the British temporarily lost sea superiority with disastrous effects on
land.  What might be interesting to visitors to Yorktown would be a
study of the campaign from the British viewpoint.
     What also might be of interest to visitors from the NSSAR (Sons of
the American Revolution point of
view) would be a listing of every known person who fought there.  We can
do about 80 percent of them.  There was once a program to provide at
each historical battlefield site a computer tape which displayed on a
screen the names of all participants.  It probably got caught in a
budget squeez.  The NSSAR Library has a listing of most persons in
Rochambeau's army and in the de Grasse fleet.  The alphabetical listing
could be scanned into a computer ZIP Disk, then the listing by units
into another disk if necessary.  The Virginia Society, SAR, may well
have those in the American army which could go into another disk.
     With my regards, Granville W. Hough, South Coast Chapter,
California Society, Sons of the American Revolution.